


Enjolras breaks

by Get_below_my_line_of_vision



Series: Slowly loving you [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, M/M, Trans Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 05:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16510625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Get_below_my_line_of_vision/pseuds/Get_below_my_line_of_vision
Summary: When Combeferre suggests he might have confused love with hate with Grantaire, Enjolras questions who else he had ignored in his life who holds dear to his heart. He tries to patch that scar he was slashed with when he was young.





	Enjolras breaks

**Author's Note:**

> (Combeferre and Courfeyrac are together)

It was late. Darkness loomed outside. The warmth of light comforted Enjolras.   
Humming, he cut his hair carefully while staring at the mirror. By now, this was normal. In contrast to his first time. The thought of that moment long ago disappeared from his thoughts. Although his mother never lost grasp of his heart.

He wanted his hair to be cut, he wanted to keep it shoulder-length. He was often teased by his friends that he was very old-fashioned.  
He smiled as he stared at his golden hair. He grabbed a tangled strand and brought his scissors to it.   
He felt refreshed. 

The next day Bahorel whispered to Enjolras in a middle of the heated arguments within Les Amis, "I could cut your hair for you."  
Enjolras knew fully well Bahorel was much more capable than he was, but cutting his hair had such heavy meaning attached to it for Enjolras. He felt as if he was the only one who would cut it.

After Enjolras' mother became distant towards him, he took his free will to choose his residence. Thus, being roommates with Combeferre. The man was balding, wore glasses, and was always reading a book. For some reason, Enjolras found him to be perfect nevertheless.  
However this wasn't the case for another Les Amis (who he didn't really wanted to count as one, but all his friends enjoyed his company, therefore leaving no choice but to let him stay), Grantaire. He was incredibly troublesome, loud and above all, infuriating. Every second he breathed bothered Enjolras, invading his thoughts mercilessly. He could not get rid of the man from his head. Naturally, he assumed this occurrence stemmed from hatred. 

"Apollo," a familiar voice called out.  
Enjolras turned his head away.  
"Enjolras," the raspy voice corrected himself.  
"What could you possibly want, Grantaire?"  
He shrugged. "Just wanted to say your name."  
Enjolras stared at him in disbelief, his heart racing with anger and his face turning red from rage. He refused to talk further. Grantaire would only fuel his fury more.   
His thoughts tangled themselves and he started to think irrationally. The entire meeting of Les Amis was a failure as they had hardly any development. He cursed his brain. Why was it distracted now? He did not come up with an answer. He was utterly lost in as of why. 

It was at this moment when he explained his problem to Combeferre that the mystery unfolded: “Enjolras, I think more than anything, you may be in love.”  
“With whom?” Enjolras looked into his eyes, as if searching for the written answer within them.  
“Grantaire.” When the first syllable was announced, Combeferre saw the shock and horror looming over Enjolras’ face, and thus lied as soon as he uttered the name to comfort him, “By love, it is platonic. I believe you are furious that you love him. Platonically.” He wanted to repeat the word again to make sure Enjolras’ mind didn’t self-destruct. However when he saw his calm face, he bit his words back.  
“I guess that would explain why I think about him before going to the Musain.”  
“You what?”  
“It explains a lot of things actually, ‘Ferre. Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome...?” Combeferre found this sudden change in attitude to be eery.

When the next day had come about, Enjolras could not stop staring at Grantaire. This time, it was Grantaire who had to awkwardly look away so the two weren’t constantly staring at each other. Immediately, Grantaire thought Enjolras had finally come to accept him, and loved. As he was about to approach to ENjolras, a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him. It was Courfeyrac. He whispered into his ear, “Combeferre made a mistake. He clarified that Enjolras was in love with you, but he only defined it as a platonic longing. If you are about to confess to him, then... don’t.”  
Grantaire stared at him for a few seconds in disbelief. Not because he was warned not to shout ‘I love you’ to Enjolras, but because Enjolras actually loved him. This meant for the past couple of years of longing, Enjolras reciprocated his feelings. The only hole in this ideal future he was now living in was that Enjolras was completely oblivious to his own emotions.  
To summarise his thoughts, he merely nodded to Courfeyrac and glanced at Combeferre (who seemed to have shuddered at the sight of Grantaire’s sharp eyes bearing into his soul). With that, he walked off, trying, still, very hard to avoid Enjolras’ stares. He must’ve been thinking very hard, whatever it was.

When Enjolras returned to his home, he threw a ball up in the air, barely touching the ceiling, to catch it. He was lying in his bed, in loose clothes he called pajamas, with wet hair after having a shower. The only thought that occupied his brain was: if he had loved R without knowing, there must be others he had not noticed either.  
He ran through the entirety of Les Amis in his mind. He found he loved them more than he thought he did before, but never did he find that he loved someone when he thought he hated them before. Other than of R.

He strolled tiredly to open a dark room adjacent to his room: ‘Ferre’s bedroom.  
Gently, he spoke, “Wake up, ‘Ferre, I need you.”  
After a moan of frustration, he sat up, rubbed his eyes and turned the lamp light on. His bed hair was out of control, and shadows filled below his eyes, and Enjolras casually observed another person in his bed but did not question it. ‘Ferre guessed this, and only questioned how it was possible that Enjolras was this observant, but completely oblivious to his feeling towards Grantaire. “What do you want?” Combeferre groaned.  
“I need you to tell me if I love anyone else.”  
“What the hell are you on about, Enjolras? You’ve gone mad.”  
“Not really. It makes perfect sense in my head.”  
“Whatever it is, of course it does.”  
“‘Ferre, I need your help. I must be ignoring my emotions towards other people too, right?”  
Combeferre thought for a moment, “It’s possible.”  
“Exactly. So...” Enjolras nodded slowly and encouragingly, assuming Combeferre understood his thoughts.  
“So...what?”  
“Tell me.”  
“Enj, I don’t know your brain.”  
“You knew about R.”  
“Since when is he ‘R’ to you? You’ve never called him that.” Enjolras ignored this comment, “Look, I don’t know. Is there anyone you’ve been neglecting like you’ve done with Gran-- R?”  
Enjolras took a moment, “I’ll think about it.”  
“Great, shut the door on the way out.” He switched off his lamp.  
“What was that about,” Courfeyrac chuckled in bed (he had to pretend he was asleep since he didn’t belong in the personal conversation between the two).

Enjolras returned to his bright room and continued throwing a ball up and down as he thought deeply. 

At midnight he had his answer. Someone had been gnawing his skull ever since he was young.

A couple of hours later, in other words early in the morning, Enjolras entered a closed restaurant. “No customers yet please. We will open in an hour.” A waitress cleaning pleasantly smiled at him.  
Enjolras shook his head solemnly, “I’m not here for the food. I’m a son of one of the waitresses. Her shift should be today.”  
“Oh. It’s you.” Her eyes turned slightly cold.  
Enjolras gave a shot nod. His mother must have been telling stories about her child.  
The waitress went to get his mother and emerged to smile heartlessly, and continued cleaning.  
His mother offered a chair but tried her best to look at him the least as she could. “Why are you here?” There was no ascent in pitch. The sentence felt more like a stab than a question.  
“I know I left-”  
“Abandoned me.”  
Enjolras bit his tongue to hold himself back from shouting, “-From home without telling you. I never explained why.”  
“It was because you were delusional.”  
“I know who I am, mother.”  
“Don’t call me that while you think you are a man.” It was at this moment Enjolras fully comprehended the fact that she did not lay her eyes on him at all since she sat down with him.  
“I left because I knew you would never accept me. So, I’m asking you to accept me now. I don’t like our distance, and I kno-- hope you don’t too. Don’t you want to be closer to your son?”  
“Daughter,” she spat, finally turning her head to him, “You abandoned me, and you expect me to view you with pity?”  
“You,” Enjolras steadied his breath, “Abandoned me, mother, when I needed you the mist, you weren’t there. Throughout my youth, you were absent in my little world. I had no support. I had to break free all by myself from the cage. Do you know how that f--”  
“The cage was reality,” the mother almost shouted at him.  
“Please,” Enjolras was truly begging, “I want us to be a family. I have no family by blood!”  
“Maybe you should break this cage and make a family elsewhere. Have a new mother. Meet a woman who is as delusional as you, and have her have a ‘son’.”  
Enjolras wanted to spit at her face as she did through his adolescent years, but he still yearned for her love. His eyes lost its colours.

“Where’s Enjolras,” Joly shouted drunkenly in the Musain, “He never misses a meeting.”  
“I have no idea,” Combeferre muttered, truly concerned, “Grantaire?”  
“Yeah?” He almost choked on his beer as he was trying to speak at the same time.  
Grantaire was present here. Then where was Enjolras? Furthermore, who was he with?

Then Enjolras entered back into the musain with a heavy black coat. Silence filled the room. Something was wrong with him. Rather, different.  
As the man walked across the room, only Combeferre caught the look Enjolras was hiding. He had been crying.  
Without a moment’s thought, Grantaire followed behind to an adjacent, empty room (since Musain was closed whenever Les Amis was present since they created too much of a ruckus). Combeferre decided not to interfere. Courfeyrac held his hand as a reassurance, then gestured everyone else in the room to raise the noise level and return back to normal. Quickly, they followed the silent orders.

Inside the adjacent room, Grantaire set his bottle down as he forgot to as he followed Enjolras, and asked with care, “Apollo, are you okay?”  
“Don’t call me that!” Enjolras turned sharply to reveal his watery eyes that had just burst with tears as he yelled at him.  
“I-I’m sorry,” Grantaire choked.  
“I don’t want you here! I don’t want you to address me! It’s your fault I went to see her! It’s your fault she will never love me! It’s your fault I realised I still wanted my mother to love me!” Words were released carelessly by Enjolras. He did not for a second consider Grantaire. He just wanted to shout, yell his emotions open.  
Instead of shouting back as usual, Grantaire remained silent as if his mouth was sewn shut. He did not react to the words visibly at all.  
“I hate you!” At this point, Enjolras truly believed he had gone evil. He did not want anything associated with him. Above all, he wanted him to feel pain. It was him, he believed, who had caused this pain, thus wanted him to suffer as much as he was. “I want you never come back! I don’t know why I didn’t say this sooner! Go away, Grantaire, and don’t you,” his voice dipped in pitch, “dare come back.”  
Grantaire stood, without shuffling or moving during the hate-filled rant. He let a second pass. Then another.  
He left.

Enjolras finally realised how empty the room was. He realised how dark it was. He realised how cold he was.  
He realised R had left. He understood why R had left.


End file.
